bourne


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bourn 1

also bourne  (bôrn, bo͝orn)
n.
A small stream; a brook.

[Middle English, from Old English burna; see bhreu- in Indo-European roots.]

bourn 2

also bourne  (bôrn, bo͝orn)
n. Archaic
1. A destination; a goal.
2. A boundary; a limit.

[French bourne, from French dialectal bosne, borne, from Old French bodne, limit, boundary marker, from Medieval Latin bodina, perhaps of Celtic origin.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.bourne - an archaic term for a boundarybourne - an archaic term for a boundary  
boundary, bounds, bound - the line or plane indicating the limit or extent of something
2.bourne - an archaic term for a goal or destination
goal, end - the state of affairs that a plan is intended to achieve and that (when achieved) terminates behavior intended to achieve it; "the ends justify the means"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in classic literature ?
"I shall not shrink even here, Reuben Bourne," interrupted Malvin.
To Life's appointed bourne: And alien tears will fill for him
On October eighteenth, Patrick Grayfur departed for that bourne whence no traveller returns.
All these matters were forgotten in the joy at seeing the first landmarks of the Columbia, that river which formed the bourne of the expedition.
Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness.
I could only think of the bourne of my travels and the work which was to occupy me whilst they endured.
Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church an inviting bourne? In such vault I had been told did Mr.
Nigh two months had Alleyne Edricson been in Castle Twynham--months which were fated to turn the whole current of his life, to divert it from that dark and lonely bourne towards which it tended, and to guide it into freer and more sunlit channels.
I lay in my basket, and my mother lay in her bed; but Betsey Trotwood Copperfield was for ever in the land of dreams and shadows, the tremendous region whence I had so lately travelled; and the light upon the window of our room shone out upon the earthly bourne of all such travellers, and the mound above the ashes and the dust that once was he, without whom I had never been.
At Weybridge, the Wey (a pretty little stream, navigable for small boats up to Guildford, and one which I have always been making up my mind to explore, and never have), the Bourne, and the Basingstoke Canal all enter the Thames together.
"That desire which comes to us all at times--`to sail beyond the bourne of sunset'--must be very imperious when it is born in you.
Behind the most ancient part of Holborn, London, where certain gabled houses some centuries of age still stand looking on the public way, as if disconsolately looking for the Old Bourne that has long run dry, is a little nook composed of two irregular quadrangles, called Staple Inn.